


Red Right Hand

by mizface



Category: Canadian 6 Degrees, Harper's Island
Genre: Art, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 05:36:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2416835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizface/pseuds/mizface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan.</p><p>Summary and title from the Nick Cave song<i> Red Right Hand</i>, which is kind of perfectly descriptive of the show, honestly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Art

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS:  
> This is a collage based on the death scenes in Harper's Island. So the warnings are of two things:
> 
> 1\. Spoilers. We're talking direct screenshots, altered but not enough to be unable to tell who the victim is in most cases. So if you haven't see HI and don't want to know who dies, or how, please don't look at this.
> 
> 2\. Graphic images of violence. Again, DEATH SCENES. As in, stillshots of the moment of death. I personally think that the alterations I've done, including removing the color, help distance them and therefore they're not as graphic. But then again, I'm the artist, so my level of tolerance is pretty darn high. PLEASE keep that in mind if you've got squicks or triggers.
> 
> THANKS  
> Okay, so several folks to thank. First and always, my amazing co-mod and braintwin Hazelwho. I don't know that I would have done this without her. Also, the utterly wonderful and totally talented Omens, who was my beta and cheerleader. She definitely boosted my confidence when it was needed, and I am very, very grateful.


	2. Behind the Scenes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, if you're interested in how this crazy piece of art came into existence, you're in luck! That's what Chapter Two is ALLLLLLLL about. It's a very, very, VERY detailed and image heavy description of how the collage was created.

This piece has undergone a LOT of changes from my first inspiration. And because I know that _I_ love seeing how the creative process works, I thought I'd share. If this isn't interesting to you, feel free to skip :)

This past January I did a drawing for my birthday promptfest of hands [LINK](http://mizface.dreamwidth.org/80540.html). While looking for photo references, I found a couple of hands holding a knife, and my thoughts drifted (naturally) to _Harper's Island_. I've done several drawings inspired by that show, but I got interested n something different (though I have to admit that I do have a hand-based Linnet 'verse WiP as well from this). I let the idea percolate, and came up with a triptych based on the show – hands holding a rope one one side and checking the sharpness of a knife on the other, with the Tree of Woe in the middle. I liked the idea of it looking like a woodcut (plus the pun of it looking like it was carved amused me), so I did the really, really rough sketch below.

I wanted close up images to suggest intimacy, and hoped that the blood running down would seem sensuous, because that's how I think Wakefield would see it (and maybe my brain kept going back to CKR in _Hard Core logo_ licking that knife. Maybe.) And that's where I left it for quite awhile. Once I got ready to really work on it, I started doing a lot of online research, looking for just the right screencaps of the Tree of Woe, as well as checking out a couple of books on hands (which, by the way, I've always thought are hard to draw, and yet lately they've fascinated me, artistically speaking. Ah, muse, you are funny and annoying all at once). I was somewhat dismayed that I couldn't find a great pic of the Tree, but figured if I had to I'd go through the extremely detailed screencaps website I found. Armed with some good material, I started playing around with hands and tree shapes:

And then I took all this on vacation. I figured I'd have lots of time to play around, work out some compositional things, etc. Then I found this amazing hand, and just knew that it would look fantastic holding a noose. Not quite my original vision, but I really loved it, so I worked it up as a sketch.

But I still wanted more of the Tree. It was essential to the triptych, which I was having trouble with from a composition standpoint – I really wasn't sure just how to connect the three pieces, and hoped that once I found the Tree, I'd be inspired. You can see some of my rough, not-so-good ideas on the sketch above with the tree. But when I tried again to look it up (on vacation. On my PHONE omg because 4G was the only internet there was in the area) I found instead a bunch of still shots of different deaths. And that changed everything. An idea came to me that would make this one image instead of three, and incorporate rope, knives, the Tree, and those morbidly gorgeous stills. Because to me, they are beautiful – the composition, play of light and dark, all terrifically thought out and chillingly, hauntingly mezmerizing.

So I drew this, which puts all of that together:

I liked it. At that point I still planned on drawing, still using a woodcut style, something really blocky and graphic and bold, befitting the weight of the subject matter and sharpness and crudity of it as well. And then, as I was looking for images to work with, it all changed again. I went from drawing to collage. This appealed to me because then I could play with the images in Photoshop. Plus it would be a different kind of challenge, as I've not really done anything like this before. So when I got home and was able to actually download screencaps, I went to town. It was a blast finding just the right image for each section. 

At the same time, I knew I wanted a lot of drawn elements too. The hand was obvious, especially since I loved the shape of it, and the idea of it holding a noose, which is an image I knew I'd never find. There were the tree branches that separated each image. And most important, the rope. It was noose, and frame, surrounding the entire piece (I dropped the knife as an element at this point), holding everything in and connecting them to that red right hand.

But I didn't want them to be completely drawn. I was worried that would make them too jarringly different. So I went looking for different rope and wood textures, that would give the pieces I drew more depth, as well as a tie to the other photo-based images. Here's a couple of tests:

Oooh, and the hand being red was a lucky bit of inspiration. I knew I wanted most of the piece to be black and white, but a touch of red seemed an obvious choice. Originally, I planned on splattering the entire piece, but once I'd made the hand red, I decided that was more than enough. I like how it makes sure you know what the focus is. And I LOVE that it immediately gave me a title and summary, both of which I dread creating. If you've never heard Nick Cave's song, _Red Right Hand_ , go find it. Totally worth a listen. I kind of sort of really want someone to make a vid now, using that song and _Harper's Island_. ANYhow, digression over, here's the original red right hand.

I originally planned on having the hand be made up of different images of Wakefield (and possibly Henry). I did some tests, but it was hard to read the images under the marker I wanted to use. Then, in another excellent internet find, I stumbled across a screencap of Wakefield's journal. I was able to use that, and loved it so much more. Plus, reversing it gave me the connective pieces I needed for the edges of the collage.

The hand, by the way, isn't just red marker. There's about a dozen layers of colored pencil, a mix of reds, browns and purples, to give more depth and dimension. Here's the hand in pencil, followed by it partially done in marker. Much as I loved the pencil, it really needed the pop only ink could give.

So I had all the basic elements I needed, and was able to put together this very, very rough draft:

Once I had that, I immediately started working on the death scenes. I Photoshopped the heck out of them, starting with dropping out all color. Then I played with the levels to build up the blacks. After that I put each one through a couple of different filters, one a film grain, and the other more of an outline that made each image more minimal, less gray. I also resized them at this point, since I now knew pretty much what size each section would be. I worked on plain paper and newsprint to create the exact shapes I needed for the rope and branches, then traced them onto the cardstock I printed with the textures I'd found. From there I went over them with a bunch of different pens, from almost dead Sharpies (for OMG perfect grays) to brush pens to super fine tipped black markers of various states of freshness (I can't tell you how glad I was that I hadn't thrown away any of my almost dead markers. Seriously cool for subtle textures).

Because of COURSE I wanted this larger than 8 ½ x 11 (the finished piece is close to 18 x 24), that automatically meant a lot of pieces of rope (and tree branches) put together. Each piece of rope was labeled on the back, to match up to the newsprint piece. 

Once I had everything drawn and printed, I cut it all out, and started work on putting the puzzle together.

There are a few instances where the image was the exact size I wanted, but cut off too soon, so I used colored pencils and markers to extend those to fit the way I wanted. As I told folks on Twitter one day, I remembered it was possible for me to manipulate the materials, rather than let them manipulate me.

So there you have it. What is surely _much more_ than you ever wanted to know about my creative process. For those keeping score, I used:

copier paper, newsprint, pencil, cardstock (for final images), Photoshopped screencaps, rope and bark texture, a variety of red/brown/purple/gray colored pencils, red marker, Sharpies, and a selection of black markers.


End file.
